Targeting Gender Equality
As a “tomboy” growing up, the shockingly pink and blue toy aisles were an overwhelming sight. From a young age, I was told what toys I “should” play with instead of being encouraged to be myself.
Target has proven that large corporations can be open and willing to changing aspects of their store for the common good of the public. Recently, the company has decided to de-gender toy aisles in select locations. This means that signs will be relabeled ‘kids’ instead of ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ and the color-coded isles will be removed.
Target’s decision was largely based off a Tweet that exposed their a sign that many found offense. It was re-Tweeted over 3,000 times, which could be severely damaging to the store’s reputation.
Target has challenged society’s hegemonic ideologies in the culture industry of dividing genders. This is a critical step toward changing the status quo of connecting colors and stereotypes with genders. Ideally, the corporate system in the United States has a responsibility to be inclusive, as this sets the tone for how consumers act (in terms of their purchase preferences) in the market at large.
While many believe this is a great move for Target, others disagree and think that toy aisles should be gendered. As a result, some conservative social network users viciously commented on Target’s social media pages.
Facebook user Mike Melgaard decided to impersonate as a Target customer-service page by refacing his account as an “Ask ForHelp” alias and questionably unethical hilarity ensued.
This caused quite a stir between people who agreed and disagreed with the gendered aisles. By assuming the Target logo, Melgaard exemplified the effect of semiotics on audiences, with the ‘signifier’ being the Target logo, and the ‘signified’ representing his identity connected to Target as an employee. This is how he tricked some users into believing he was a customer service representative.
Target later clarified that he did not represent their stores after they released a statement offering a phone number to verify if a user is an actual representative.
This shift in focus toward a greater consideration for how the company represents its products highlights a potential paradigm shift for Target and for other large companies that have traditionally used a more gendered shelving system in their stores. Whether these changes have been brought on by increased consumer scrutiny or through internal assessments, the largest corporations tend to dictate consumer tastes as culture industries in which they form and maintain the status quo. As such, it is critical to place extra caution on how products are represented when they are targeted toward children, who may grow up feeling as though a certain type of toy is inaccessible due to a distinctly gendered characteristic (such as color). In the future, hopefully more companies will follow Target’s example.
In the final analysis, media does a wonderful job of making cases like this go viral: what started as a simple Tweet from a woman performing oppositional decoding of the ideology of polarizing genders caused a significant public reaction. Additionally, Melgaard opposed those comments attacking Target and also made a course of action. His actions may be questionable, but Melgaard managed to reach a lot of people through the comedy of his actions.
